Knut The Polar Bear's Cause Of Death: Drowning

By ecorazzicontributor | April 1, 2011

Like us on Facebook:

The current article you are reading does not reflect the views of the current editors and contributors of the new Ecorazzi

We’ve been keeping you posted on the continuing story that is the investigation into how the Berlin zoo’s celebrity polar bear, Knut, died earlier this month. And now a necropsy report has revealed that the polar bear drowned after falling into his enclosure’s pool.

Knut was suffering from a condition called encephalitis, which is an irritation and causes swelling of the brain.The swelling was likely caused by an infection, though it remains unclear what the infection was.
“We believe that this suspected infection must already have been there for a long time … at least several weeks, possibly months,” said Achim Gruber, a professor of veterinary medicine at Berlin’s Free University. He then added that he feels it was likely a virus.

Because of the infection, experts are saying that even if Knut hadn’t fallen into the water he would have died anyway. “Given the massive scale of the inflammation, Knut would probably have died sooner or later – it wouldn’t really have been possible to save him,” pathologist Claudia Szentiks said.

Knut was born in December 2006 at the Berlin zoo, and died at the age of four-years-old. Polar bears typically live 15 to 20 years in the wild, and even longer in captivity, which is why it was especially troubling to hear that Knut had passed.

Allegedly the zoo is thinking of having knut stuffed and putting the polar bear on display at Berlin’s Museum of Natural History…